I haven't taken the time to look up the exact date I bought it, but approximately four years ago, I bought an Acer Aspire computer. I took it out of the box, plugged it in and less than five minutes later I was online, downloading all the shareware I use because it's way cool and I'm cheap. From that day until about three weeks ago, I never had a bit of trouble with the hardware. Software "issues" and operator stupidity occasionally provided opportunities for heartache and loud swearing, but the hardware was totally reliable.
A few weeks ago, my 'puter started overheating and freezing up, occasionally even shutting down altogether. I can't begin to express how irritating and frustrating that was when I'd be in the "flow" of writing!
Mind you, everything on my laptop is backed up, and the really, really important stuff is backed up in several places. (Anal? Who says I'm anal???) If my laptop were to die in the next five minutes, the only data I would lose would be anything in this post that Blogger hasn't saved yet. But, I love my little 'puter and we've been through a lot of adventures together. I hate to see her getting old and feeble.
Surfing the net and reading zines and blogs is what I do for entertainment. Writing (both blogs and fiction) is what I do for survival. I need my 'puter for both.
I do the routine maintenance on my computers on a regular basis. Beyond that, I'm not to much for tinkering, tweeking and fooling around with the computer operations. I like to use the computer as a tool. I'm not really interested in working on the machine itself.
Today I saw an ad for an Acer very similar to the one I have -- only newer and with a lot more speed, memory and hard drive space, plus a DVD burner. Price was $299 with free shipping! I called Dear Husband and told him he had 20 seconds to give me one good reason not to buy it. He told me to go for it (probably because he heard the tone in my voice that indicated if he came up with a good reason for me not to buy it, I'd be pissed as hell).
New 'puter should arrive next week. If it's half as good as the Little Princess here, I'll be totally thrilled.
The downside is that I will probably spend my holiday weekend setting up my new computer, and I hate spending my valuable spare time working on my computer as opposed to using my computer to do my work.
If I play my cards right, I'll end up with a new, fast souped-up computer, and still have this one (complete with the duct tape that's holding on the cover) for a backup. I can hear DH now muttering, "How many computers does one person need?"
I understand that. Hell, I am constantly on my Daughter Dear's case for her purse-and-shoe habit. (I call her Imelda -- but she doesn't know what that means.) She is always looking for a new purse or the coolest new shoes. I have not owned as many shoes or purses in my life as she has in her closet right now.
Generally speaking, I am a person of simple tastes and limited needs. I have one purse (well two, because I recently bought a travel satchel that will carry my laptop) and I can count my shoes on one hand (if flip flops don't count). The only jewelry I wear any more is my wedding ring and occasionally a pearl necklace my mother gave me. I buy my clothes at thrift stores. I eat out only about once a week, and then it's usually for lunch or takeout Chinese. I don't go to movies or concerts or plays. I cut my own hair. All in all, I'm a pretty thrifty gal. So, if I want to collect a bunch of electronic crap, well, by golly I think I'm entitled!
New laptop should arrive next week. Cursing and gnashing of teeth may/may not follow.
Showing posts with label Humor. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Humor. Show all posts
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
A Day In My Life
Below is a summary description of one of my days last week. Compared with the days since then, this was a kind of slow day. I'm posting this mainly to take the Nazi reflection off the top of my blog.
Based on events today, I am not sure when I'll check back in here.
I should have known I was in for a bad day. I hardly ever sleep all the way until my alarm goes off. Usually I wake anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes before the alarm goes off, providing me with the opportunity to ease into my day slowly and pleasantly.Most of the time I'm already in the shower by 6:00 a.m. I set the alarm as an emergency backstop only. This does not bode well.
6:45 a.m In the car on the way to work. Call my mother in convalescent home.
Mom gets on the phone and she's chipper and alert. Loves it there. Just before I get to work she tells me they told her she could go home tomorrow, maybe. She was supposed to be there for a month before we have to decide what to do next. (Leave it to my mother to make a miraculous recovery!)
My guardian angel is with me because I manage not to run into a ditch.
7:05 a.m Log on to work email
Send frantic message to sister regarding the situation with Mom.
Begin work day. I do not write about work here, other than to say that it is fast-paced, stressful and totally CRAZY. Among fending off dozens of emails and phone calls (all bosses out of the office, so I was "in charge"), my main goal for the day was to finish a draft of a report I have been working on for a week. Started that at about 7:10.
10:00 a.m Sister calls
Nursing home has scheduled a care conference for this afternoon. May release Mom early next week.
3:00 p.m participate by phone in care conference
Nurses report on almost miraculous recovery by my mother Plan is to release her on Monday.
3:20 p.m send email to sister
Please call. Let's discuss.
3:30 p.m sister calls
Discuss various options. Decision is that she can deal with moving Mom on Monday. No need for me to go back again right now.
5:20 p.m almost everybody's gone from the office. Phone is quiet. Working on report.
If I'm going to go work out at Curves, need to leave soon, but I'm almost finished with report. Blow off Curves and finish drafting report.
6:20 p.m finish draft of report.save to desktop.
I pull up the document I just saved to my desktop in order to email it to one of my supervising attorneys for review. It's gone!! The version that is there is from hours and hours ago!!! I have lost all the good summary stuff I just wrote!! There is screaming and yelling. I believe the word FUCK is used more than once. Legal assistant is still there. She runs in and calms me down long enough to recover document from Recent Documents (Thank you, K-- and thank you, you miserable bastards at Microsoft.) I email document to attorney (for safe keeping if nothing else).
6:45 p.m arrive home.
Husband not ready for dinner.
7:00 p.m head out for walk (forgetting bug spray).
Walk is wonderful. It's very hot but there's a nice breeze and I'm walking in the fresh air with my music (Thank God for Jimmy Buffett.) The day is looking up!
7:45 p.m heading home, sun behind clouds, very sweaty.
Mosquitoes love sweat!
8:15 p.m home
Doctoring Skeeter bites, reading newspaper. Husband leaves to run errand.
8:45 p.m pour glass of wine. Log onto computer to "process" my day
ahhhh
9:10 p.m Husband not home. Dogs sleeping. It is peaceful and quiet.
Dinner? Wine?
Wine? Dinner?
Can Triscuits be considered dinner? On a day like today?!! Hell, yes. Husband can fend for himself when he gets home.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Great Bumper Sticker!
Dear Husband gets credit for seeing this one on a large pickup:
YES, THIS IS MY TRUCK.
NO, I WILL NOT HELP YOU
MOVE SOMETHING.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Taking A Break
I'm off again travelling on business, this time all week.
Here's hoping I can manage to find a seat on the plane other than Seat 29E.
Monday, February 23, 2009
The god of Lowe's
The fastest way to get to Target from our house involves cutting through the parking lot of a Lowe's store. Shortly after the store opened my Dear Husband came home from one of his almost daily trips to either Target or Lowe's and said that he thought the god of Lowe's was working overtime. I asked him to explain, and he told me he felt there must surely be some special deity looking out for the Lowe's customers because they sure as hell don't look out for themselves! They walk right in front of cars. They operate shopping carts recklessly. They do not watch where they're going.
In the intervening years, we have continued to be amazed at how well the god of Lowe's takes care of the Lowe's patrons.
This morning was particularly bad. I actually saw a car almost hit an old couple, and it would have been TOTALLY the old peoples' fault. Fortunately, the god of Lowe's swooped in and stopped the car just in the nick of time.
The god of Lowe's is pretty awesome, but that kind of over-protectiveness seems to encourage people to behave irresponsibly.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
Like many others in the blogosphere, I am utterly smitten by Margaret and Helen, the elderly ladies from Texas whose blog was created as a way for them to keep in touch when one of them moved far away. Largely due to the outrageously funny and flamboyantly liberal posts from Margaret during the presidential campaign, the old gals have become something of a cyber-phenomenon. I gotta tell you Margaret is about to bump the cartoon character, Maxine, from her place as the embodiment of "who I wanna be when I get old."
Margaret is not exactly Sarah Palin's biggest fan [cough, cough]. Margaret actually loathes and despises Sarah Palin. She seems to have the same general level of disdain for Governor Palin that I always reserved for Phyllis Schafly, and for almost all the same reasons. Granted, Margaret gets carried away with her prose from time to time, but to be honest I could come uncorked thinking too much about Schafly or Gov. Palin, too.
The calculated use of hyperbole and satire are almost sacred obligations for any writer who wants to lampoon politicians. What Margaret may lack in the area of satire she more than makes up for in the area of hyperbole. She does get nasty sometimes, but her writing is so crisp and funny, I forgive her when she gets carried away. That's a large part of her charm.
The other day she wrote a post about Gov. Palin's trip to Georgia to campaign for Senator Chambliss. To summarize: Margaret was not pleased with Gov. Palin for making the trip and she is not a fan of Senator Chambliss. Margaret's post generally seemed to be along the lines that the Guv needs to go back to Alaska where she can screw up the lives of only a few people, and the people of the state of Georgia need to get real ... and get rid of Chambliss. Both of those things seemed like perfectly reasonable suggestions to me, although even I will acknowledge that Margaret was in something of a fine fettle when she wrote the post.
I usually don't read the comments on that blog, mainly because there are too damned many of them. For some reason, I scanned the comments to that post and came across some horrible evangelical screed. I haven't seen anything that nasty since I quit reading Episcopal Church-related blogs.
It would appear that, even though the election is over, the crazies are still lathered up. I would love to think that the Obama Administration will have support from a wide spectrum of America. I would like to see us join together to make the changes that are necessary in order to restore America's soul, repair our damaged relations with the rest of the world, and move toward a new future together. My fear is that the far right wing racists and Christianists will not let that happen.
I appreciate Margaret's humor, just as I appreciate the humor of Al Franken, and other liberal humorists. I see it as HUMOR. It makes me sad (and frightened) to think that so many people in our country are so narrow-minded, short-sighted and bigoted that they (a) cannot acknowledge that someone might have another point of view and (b) they get pissed off when somebody pulls their leg.
Come on, people: LIGHTEN UP!
Margaret is not exactly Sarah Palin's biggest fan [cough, cough]. Margaret actually loathes and despises Sarah Palin. She seems to have the same general level of disdain for Governor Palin that I always reserved for Phyllis Schafly, and for almost all the same reasons. Granted, Margaret gets carried away with her prose from time to time, but to be honest I could come uncorked thinking too much about Schafly or Gov. Palin, too.
The calculated use of hyperbole and satire are almost sacred obligations for any writer who wants to lampoon politicians. What Margaret may lack in the area of satire she more than makes up for in the area of hyperbole. She does get nasty sometimes, but her writing is so crisp and funny, I forgive her when she gets carried away. That's a large part of her charm.
The other day she wrote a post about Gov. Palin's trip to Georgia to campaign for Senator Chambliss. To summarize: Margaret was not pleased with Gov. Palin for making the trip and she is not a fan of Senator Chambliss. Margaret's post generally seemed to be along the lines that the Guv needs to go back to Alaska where she can screw up the lives of only a few people, and the people of the state of Georgia need to get real ... and get rid of Chambliss. Both of those things seemed like perfectly reasonable suggestions to me, although even I will acknowledge that Margaret was in something of a fine fettle when she wrote the post.
I usually don't read the comments on that blog, mainly because there are too damned many of them. For some reason, I scanned the comments to that post and came across some horrible evangelical screed. I haven't seen anything that nasty since I quit reading Episcopal Church-related blogs.
It would appear that, even though the election is over, the crazies are still lathered up. I would love to think that the Obama Administration will have support from a wide spectrum of America. I would like to see us join together to make the changes that are necessary in order to restore America's soul, repair our damaged relations with the rest of the world, and move toward a new future together. My fear is that the far right wing racists and Christianists will not let that happen.
I appreciate Margaret's humor, just as I appreciate the humor of Al Franken, and other liberal humorists. I see it as HUMOR. It makes me sad (and frightened) to think that so many people in our country are so narrow-minded, short-sighted and bigoted that they (a) cannot acknowledge that someone might have another point of view and (b) they get pissed off when somebody pulls their leg.
Come on, people: LIGHTEN UP!
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Joe The Plumber (NOT)
My Dear Husband is a wonderful guy. Most of the time.
I love him a lot. Most of the time.
He's a good husband. Most of the time.
Yesterday morning wasn't one of those times.
DH is the odd kind of guy who will actually ask for directions when he is lost. I have always loved that about him. He has one sort of Man-Trait that makes me totally crazy: He refuses to hire anyone to do work around the house. He thinks that if he could possibly fix something (albeit with great difficulty, enormous investments of time, multiple trips to Lowe's and a hell of a lot of swearing, slamming of doors, throwing of tools and general mayhem), he'd rather do that than to hire a professional who would do it more easily, in a fraction of the time, with all the right tools and (one would hope) with less drama. When he threatens to undertake a project I think might be difficult, I always suggest he hire a professional. He takes that as a criticism of his mojo or something and insists that he can do it himself. I get mad. He gets madder. Unpleasantness ensues, sometimes for days.
Since we know how they ultimately end up, the lead-up to repair jobs in our house takes a predictable course. As with many traumatic experiences, first comes denial. We all pretend that there is nothing wrong that would require a repair project.
As per our usual procedures, a while back, when the faucet in the kitchen sink gradually lost water pressure until it was hardly more than a dribble, we pretended we didn't notice. When eventually no water came out of the faucet at all, we sucked it up and used the sprayer, although I did venture a few vague comments about what a mess the sprayer makes and it would be nice to be able to use the faucet. DH pretended not to hear me. I shut up because Plumbing Repair Projects are the worst, and I knew we were headed for a Big One. I wanted to put it off as long as possible, so I kept my mouth shut. Denial is a wonderful thing.
We limped along using the sprayer for a couple of weeks. I gritted my teeth a lot, but I told myself it was preferable to a dreaded Plumbing Repair Project.
Well, on Tuesday of this week DH broke the sprayer. (Thank you, dear Lord, that it wasn't me or Daughter Dear who broke it!!) The result was that we had no water in the kitchen at all from Tuesday until yesterday.
My dysfunctional way of dealing with the situation was to refuse to even try to cook. We ate sandwiches on Wednesday. DH went out with the guys on Thursday and I ordered Chinese take-out.
Yesterday it rained. That meant DH was home from work. I had previously put in for a vacation day in order to putz around the house and do some "fall cleaning." When it was clear he was not going anywhere, I considered going to work anyway because I knew what was about to happen. It was sort of like watching an auto accident: you know what is going to happen, but there is no way to prevent it. Of course, he decided that it was the perfect day to replace the faucet. I hid in the bedroom most of the morning.
I will not go into the horrific details, but I am pleased to report that, after approximately four hours of swearing, grunting, slamming doors, and three trips to Lowe's he finally got the new faucet installed and working. We now have excellent water pressure. The new faucet didn't come with a sprayer, so we now also have a hole in the sink where the sprayer used to be. I don't care. I hated that damned thing anyway.
I love him a lot. Most of the time.
He's a good husband. Most of the time.
Yesterday morning wasn't one of those times.
DH is the odd kind of guy who will actually ask for directions when he is lost. I have always loved that about him. He has one sort of Man-Trait that makes me totally crazy: He refuses to hire anyone to do work around the house. He thinks that if he could possibly fix something (albeit with great difficulty, enormous investments of time, multiple trips to Lowe's and a hell of a lot of swearing, slamming of doors, throwing of tools and general mayhem), he'd rather do that than to hire a professional who would do it more easily, in a fraction of the time, with all the right tools and (one would hope) with less drama. When he threatens to undertake a project I think might be difficult, I always suggest he hire a professional. He takes that as a criticism of his mojo or something and insists that he can do it himself. I get mad. He gets madder. Unpleasantness ensues, sometimes for days.
Since we know how they ultimately end up, the lead-up to repair jobs in our house takes a predictable course. As with many traumatic experiences, first comes denial. We all pretend that there is nothing wrong that would require a repair project.
As per our usual procedures, a while back, when the faucet in the kitchen sink gradually lost water pressure until it was hardly more than a dribble, we pretended we didn't notice. When eventually no water came out of the faucet at all, we sucked it up and used the sprayer, although I did venture a few vague comments about what a mess the sprayer makes and it would be nice to be able to use the faucet. DH pretended not to hear me. I shut up because Plumbing Repair Projects are the worst, and I knew we were headed for a Big One. I wanted to put it off as long as possible, so I kept my mouth shut. Denial is a wonderful thing.
We limped along using the sprayer for a couple of weeks. I gritted my teeth a lot, but I told myself it was preferable to a dreaded Plumbing Repair Project.
Well, on Tuesday of this week DH broke the sprayer. (Thank you, dear Lord, that it wasn't me or Daughter Dear who broke it!!) The result was that we had no water in the kitchen at all from Tuesday until yesterday.
My dysfunctional way of dealing with the situation was to refuse to even try to cook. We ate sandwiches on Wednesday. DH went out with the guys on Thursday and I ordered Chinese take-out.
Yesterday it rained. That meant DH was home from work. I had previously put in for a vacation day in order to putz around the house and do some "fall cleaning." When it was clear he was not going anywhere, I considered going to work anyway because I knew what was about to happen. It was sort of like watching an auto accident: you know what is going to happen, but there is no way to prevent it. Of course, he decided that it was the perfect day to replace the faucet. I hid in the bedroom most of the morning.
I will not go into the horrific details, but I am pleased to report that, after approximately four hours of swearing, grunting, slamming doors, and three trips to Lowe's he finally got the new faucet installed and working. We now have excellent water pressure. The new faucet didn't come with a sprayer, so we now also have a hole in the sink where the sprayer used to be. I don't care. I hated that damned thing anyway.
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